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How To Print A List Of Records

This document explains the process of printing a list
in a report. Typically, a report pulls its data from a list
of records. For instance, you may want to print a list
of clients or a list of debtors. To do this, the Report
Writer uses a "loop."

Using Loops

Lists of records are printed by naming a form, or
by naming a list within a form. The report system
uses a "loop" to go through all of the records
contained in the chosen form and then prints the
data that fits your criteria. For
instance, @cl means the Client form
is being used, while @cl.de uses the
Client's Debtor list.

Printing A Simple List

The example below prints a list of all Clients.

@cl

{----- Start looping through the Client list

Client:

@cl.na

Address:

@cl.ad

{-- The Client Name and Address

@cl.a1

will be printed once

@cl.a2

for each Client in the list.

@cl

{----- End of data to be printed through the loop

This report snippet will list all Client accounts in the system,
printing the Name and Address of each Client.

There are some critical parts to this code:

The @cl statement refers to the Client form.
The fact that there are two @clstatements
tells the system to scan through the Client list. This is
a "Client loop."

The section of code, @cl.na to @cl.a2, will
be printed once for every Client in the list. You can add blank
lines after the @cl.a2 field to provide a
space after each Client Name and Address.

The statement that marks the beginning and the end
of the loop must each be on its own line in
the Report Body and right up against the left hand side
of the Text Editor.

Getting The Right Results

When you use a loop, it is important to print information
within the loop using fields that are related to the form
you are looping through. If you request data from a field
that is not related to the loop, you may see incorrect
results or generate a -19 error. For example, if you loop
through your debtors, but you put a field code in the loop
for a field that is not on the Debtor form, such
as Client Contact, the Report Writer cannot find the
information.

Correct results depend on the order in which your data
is requested. This is determined by the relationships
between different forms. This concept can be explained
as a sort of "nesting" of data sources. For instance, a list
of debtors belonging to a client could be considered as
nested in the client source, proceeding from the client data.
Understanding this procession, you could make your
list more informative by including more debtor data,
such as the debtor's Owing, for each debtor that you
list. You are in a loop. The outer part of this loop
is the client. The inner part of the loop is each
debtor. If you preserve this order as you request
data, your report will render results correctly. This
is illustrated next.

Printing A List From A List

The following example prints a list of accounts belonging
to a given Client. The debtor information is "nested" in the
Client loop and prints once for each Client Debtor that is
retrieved.

@cl.de

{---- Start looping through the Client's Debtor list

@de.na @de.fi

{ Print the Debtor Name and File Number.

@cl.de

{---- End of loop

This report snippet lists all debtors belonging to one
client account in the system, printing the Name and
File Number for each debtor. If more than one client
has been tagged, the report will print a list of debtors
for each client that you tag.

The @cl.de statement refers to the
Debtor List in the Client form. The fact that there are
two @cl.de statements tells the
system to scan through that list. This is a "Client Debtor
loop."

The @de.na line will be printed once for
every Debtor in the list. You could put blank lines before and
after the @de.na line to provide a space
before and after each record.

Nested Loops

To tie together the two examples that have been given,
you could print a complete list of your clients, listing
every Debtor Name and Debtor File Number for each Client.
To do this, the code for the second example is "nested"
inside the code for the first example as follows.

Printing A List Within A List

@cl

{---Start looping through the Client list

@cl.na

Print each Client Name

@cl.de

{---Start looping through the Client's Debtor list

@de.na

{---Print the Debtor Name and

@de.fi

{---File Number

@cl.de

{---End of the Client's Debtor loop

@cl

{---End of the Client loop

This code will print in a list, each Client Name followed
by a list of that Client's Debtors.

Batchoff/Batchon

Nested loop conditions might fail in certain reports due
to batch fetching interference, especially when outer/inner
loops share the same record type. To prevent this, batch
fetching may be temporarily disabled with @batchoff.
The command @batchoff switches OFF batch
fetching and @batchon switches it back ON.
This is only necessary in very particular cases where nested
loops are causing the Report Writer to fail.

Batch fetching will automatically reset to its default position,
ON, whenever a new report is printed.

Please be aware that switching OFF batch fetching
will result in very slow report writing when you are looping
through large lists of accounts or transactions.

EXAMPLE:

This report prompts for a Client to run on.
It tags only one account in each group that it finds.

Select Edit from the top menu bar and then select
View tags to see your tagged list.

Summary

To print a list of records in a report, the Report Writer
uses a loop. Each loop has a beginning and an end
marker that is the field code for the form you are looping
through. Information printed within the loop must be
correctly related to the form the loop is using.

The beginning and end loop marker must each be on
its own line, right up against the left hand side of the
Text Editor.

You may loop through a form that contains a list
by using the field code for the list, e.g. @cl.de for
the Client Debtor list.

One loop may be nested inside another loop. Sometimes
the correct relationship between outer and inner parts of
a loop is not easy to determine. However, data can only
be retrieved in an order that is logical to the database
system.

Additional examples of creating lists are found in How-to
topics about WHERE clauses, Variables and 'if' Conditionals.
Remember to refer to the pre-defined reports included in
the Report Definition list for sample reports using these
concepts.